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The global economic crisis has accelerated the fear that the United States' international power is fading. It has also made clear the need for American higher education to engage more deeply with the rest of the world, not run from it. That was the consensus among a group of presidents and provosts who met in New York this month as part of "Higher Education in a Global Society," a two-day conference sponsored by the TIAA-CREF Institute. The discussions were wide-ranging and covered study abroad, foreign-student enrollment, curricular development, visa policy, and the challenges of developing partnerships abroad. Several presidents talked about the importance of continuing international programs in the face of budget challenges and public skepticism over money spent on foreign projects and students, rather than domestic ones.

The U.S. ambassador to India, in an interview with "The Chronicle" last week, criticized the opposition of some Indian government officials and politicians to legislation that would allow U.S. and other foreign universities to establish campuses or programs in the country. He spoke favorably, however, about India's willingness to take on half of the financial and administrative responsibility in running the Fulbright educational-exchange program. The new Fulbright agreement, recently signed by the two governments, doubles the total amount of scholarships awarded annually to Indians and Americans, to $5-million, said David C. Mulford, U.S. ambassador to India since 2004. The numbers of students awarded scholarships in India and the United States, about 100 in all, will double as well, effective immediately. For the first time, India will make a financial contribution to the scholarships, which have been renamed the Fulbright-Jawaharlal Nehru Scholarships and Grants. The new agreement also allows both countries to raise funds from private sources to expand the student-exchange program.

What does it take to run an international-education office? A detailed understanding of obtuse federal regulations, the ability to recruit foreign students on a shoestring budget, and a talent for creating study-abroad programs that are both academically rigorous and highly popular. That was the message in dozens of sessions last week at the annual conference of Nafsa: Association of International Educators. The meeting, which drew more than 9,300 people to Washington, illustrated the increasing complexity of the field for international educators. The discussions ranged from the pragmatic to the lofty. One session on the finer points of the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, more commonly known as Sevis, drew hundreds of attendees eager to hear government officials explain new and existing regulations for how international students are registered and tracked in the United States. Other workshops focused on how colleges can and should develop study-abroad programs that create "global citizens," draw nontraditional students, and are less damaging to the environment.

Over the past 25 years, the total number of students in college has increased by about 50 percent. But the number of students graduating with degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects has remained more or less constant. In 2009 the United States graduated 89,140 students in the visual and performing arts, more than in computer science, math, and chemical engineering combined and more than double the number of visual-and-performing-arts graduates in 1985. There is nothing wrong with the arts, psychology, and journalism, but graduates in these fields have lower wages and are less likely to find work in their fields than graduates in science and math. Moreover, more than half of all humanities graduates end up in jobs that don't require college degrees, and those graduates don't get a big income boost from having gone to college. Most important, graduates in the arts, psychology, and journalism are less likely to create the kinds of innovations that drive economic growth. Economic growth is not the only goal of higher education, but it is one of the main reasons taxpayers subsidize higher education through direct government college support, as well as loans, scholarships, and grants. The potential wage gains for college graduates is reason enough for students to pursue a college education. The obsessive focus on a college degree has served neither taxpayers nor students well. Only 35 percent of students starting a four-year degree program will graduate within four years, and less than 60 percent will graduate within six years. Students who haven't graduated within six years probably never will. The U.S. college dropout rate is about 40 percent, the highest college dropout rate in the industrialized world. That's a lot of wasted resources. Students with two years of college education may get something for those two years, but it's less than half of the wage gains from completing a four-year degree. No degree, few skills, and a lot of debt is not an ideal way to begin a career. A big part of the problem is that the United States has paved a single road to knowledge, the road through the classroom. Lots of students, however, crash before they reach the end of the road. Who can blame them? Sit-down learning is not for everyone, perhaps not even for most people. There are many roads to an education. Going to college is neither necessary nor sufficient to be well educated. Apprentices in Europe are well educated but not college schooled. The author contends the need to open more roads to education so that more students can reach their desired destination.

Nine faculty associations in Australia, Canada, Europe, New Zealand, and the United States have approved the preliminary draft of an International Statement on Academic Freedom and Tenure. The statement was developed in response to "existing and potential threats to higher education and to principles which are fundamental to the universities." (MLW)

American colleges and universities are often thought as being divided into two tiers--the elite institutions and everybody else. That grouping raises two important questions, however: Is that a full picture of degree providers in the United States, and do the tiers provide similar credentials? The answer to both is no. There are actually between five and seven tiers, and all of them need to be considered to get a clear picture of the degrees that people actually use. All those tiers exist for a reason: the demand for paper credentials. At the upper end of the postsecondary spectrum, credentials come with significant meaning attached to them. That meaning may simply be job marketability, or it may include an implied warranty of academic skill suitable for graduate or professional study. The problem that the society faces in trying to sort out the credentials is that all degrees are called the same thing. A bachelor's degree from Colby College, ITT Technical Institute, some unaccredited business college in Los Angeles, or Big Al's Overnight Degrees in Alabama looks the same, is labeled the same, and--in most states--is legally the same. The author contends that to legally protect the meaning of the college degree, it is time to start formally classifying American degrees according to their provider, purpose, content, or all of the above. The tiers are there for good; they should be labeled accurately so that consumers, educators, and employers know exactly what they are.

This article presents findings of a study on black students attending selective colleges and universities in the United States. Results of a study by sociologists at Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania indicate that more than a quarter of the black students enrolled at selective American colleges and universities are immigrants or the children of immigrants. The finding suggests that U.S.-born African-American students are more underrepresented at selective colleges than is commonly thought. The report is likely to add fuel to the debate over affirmative-action. Camille Z. Charles, an associate professor of sociology at Penn who is one of the paper's authors, said in an interview. "If you're a purist"--if you view affirmative action as restitution for the harm done by American slavery and segregation-- "then you'll think that this is not in the spirit of affirmative action," she said. "But if you're a diversity purist, and your idea is to expose everybody to as many different kinds of people as possible, then you'll think this is great."

This article highlights the findings from two studies about faculty productivity in the United States that were discussed at the American Educational Research Association's annual conference in San Diego this month. The first paper, titled "International Faculty: Experiences of Academic Life and Productivity in U.S. Universities," found that faculty members in the United States with foreign undergraduate degrees appear to be more productive as researchers than are those who earned degrees domestically. The paper says the reasons for this are unclear, especially given the relative dissatisfaction that such professors feel toward their jobs. The researchers offer several possible explanations: that only the best and brightest scholars of other countries secure tenure-track faculty positions at American colleges; that the foreign colleges where such faculty members received their undergraduate degrees were more selective or more focused in their offerings than the American colleges their colleagues attended; or that faculty members with foreign degrees simply work harder, perhaps because they are more focused or isolated or believe they need to work especially hard to gain tenure or earn U.S. citizenship. The second paper, titled "International and Citizen Women Faculty Productivity at Research Universities in the United States," was based on an analysis performed by Kate Mamiseishvili, an assistant professor of higher-education leadership at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. She found that the foreign women she studied were substantially less productive than their American counterparts in terms of the time spent teaching and working with students. The foreign women were substantially more productive, however, when it came to research, as measured by their publication records and the numbers of presentations or exhibitions they had given over the previous two years. Although citizen and noncitizen women did not significantly differ in the time they had devoted to service activities, the international female academics were substantially more likely to perform such activities within their own institutions.

It is time to educate corporate America on the need to finance higher education by using a need-based giving standard. Corporations need to realize that two-year colleges significantly affect their work force and economy. Only 25 percent of the jobs in the United States require a degree from a four-year college, yet up to 75 percent of the jobs require training provided by two-year institutions. A person with a two-year associate degree earns 20 percent to 30 percent more than a high-school graduate. Additionally, someone with an associate degree is halfway to earning a four-year bachelor's degree--which, over a lifetime, results in almost $1-million more than just a high-school diploma. These figures not only represent more income for the individual, but they also portray more buying power, investment capital, and tax revenues, offering positive benefits for the economy. In order to provide the future work force that this country needs, corporations must set aside a greater percentage of higher-education giving for two-year colleges.

A Mexican saying holds that "Como Mexico no hay dos"--There is only one Mexico. American media these days interpret that notion with a vengeance. Story after story depicts a country overrun by out-of-control drug wars and murder, where corrupt police officers trip over beheaded victims more often than they nab perpetrators. South of the border, a beauty queen smuggles drugs. Kidnappers take a hostage negotiator hostage. People with money keep security SWAT teams close by. Killers invade hospitals to shoot enemies who escaped earlier hits. All that in a land that endlessly exports illiterate illegal immigrants, viewed by many in the United States as either continuing threats to the economy or ethnic jokes who stoke the rise of a book such as Gustavo Arellano's "Ask a Mexican!". In this article, the author describes Feria Internacional del Libro de Guadalajara (FIL), the foremost book fair in the Spanish-speaking world, the pride of this venerable capital of Jalisco state, about four hours east of Puerto Vallarta. It drew an astonishing 600,000 visitors over nine days in late November and early December--up from 150,000 its first year--a good 60,000 of them children and most of them buying books. Founded two decades ago, FIL annually draws to Mexico's second-largest city--the metropolitan area here comprises 4.5 million people--approximately 600 publishers and 15,000 book professionals from 40 countries, among them more than 500 authors. The author contends that this international literary festival in Guadalajara should close the book on media stereotypes of America's much-maligned neighbor.

In this article, the author observes that the economic recession gripping the United States has already had a negative impact on its higher-education system at a time when it is more important than ever to have an innovative, well-educated work force to succeed in an increasingly competitive and global job market. Although federal student loans remain readily available, tighter credit markets have restricted the ability of some families to borrow money from private lenders, making it more difficult for them to pay for college. Colleges and universities are economic engines of a nation's economy. As such, the author asserts, this should be a concern for policy makers as well as students and their families. He recommends that while Congress is drafting its economic-stimulus priorities this month, it should consider several concrete actions that will benefit students, colleges, and the nation's economy. These actions are detailed in the article.

What do college presidents do, anyway? There was a time when American college presidents were looked to for intellectual, and even political, leadership. One of the most famous examples is Woodrow Wilson, who, as the head of Princeton University, was recruited to become governor of New Jersey in 1910 and, just two years later, was the successful Democratic candidate for president of the United States. The author, himself president of a liberal-arts college, writes that the job of a college president has evolved considerably over the last half-century, and encompasses a wide range of duties, including financial management, personal counseling to many and diverse constituents, dispensing of patronage, dispute settlement, and social connection.

Prestigious American universities are franchising their brands in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, building campuses and making it possible for students in those regions to receive an American degree while remaining at home. In doing so, however, they undercut an important component of American education and economy: educating international students in the United States. For undergraduates especially, life at an elite American research university--with its unmatched opportunities to learn both inside and outside classrooms and laboratories--cannot easily be replicated overseas. Students benefit most when they come together, full time, in a setting that offers both intellectual and physical community, a place where core academic values such as intellectual freedom, the unfettered search for truth, collaboration, diversity, gender equality, and even good old-fashioned school spirit are protected and encouraged. In this article, the author discusses how the presence of foreign students on campuses can be beneficial for the American society as a whole. He contends that it is not to the United States' competitive advantage to erect higher visa hurdles around university campuses or to franchise out a diluted version of universities to foreign shores. Rather, Americans should be sure that the best talent can come to the United States, for their own benefit, for the students', and for the ultimate good of the entire world.

Latinos are the largest ethnic minority group in the United States; they are taking resources and jobs from Americans; they are "browning" their racial makeup--among other scenarios of doom that have accompanied the immigration debate. But with the 2008 presidential campaign season, Latinos have suddenly become the belles of the ball. People are told that they are the swingiest of the swing voters: the one decisive constituency. Pundits claim that, unlike African-Americans, Latinos are not married to any political parties. Anyone can get them. In this article, the author explains why Latinos so susceptible to being spun. He also discusses how the reduction of the Latino population to the processes of whitening and racialization are simply disabling and reductive.

Thirty years ago, every American academic going on a research trip or a sabbatical to England carried a copy of David Lodge's comic classic, "Changing Places" (1975), which told a tale of two 40-year-old professors of English literature and two embattled campuses in the eventful spring of 1969. An ineffectual British academic, Philip Swallow, from the University of Rummidge (think Birmingham), and a hotshot American star, Morris Zapp, from the State University of Euphoria (a fictional state between Northern and Southern California), in Plotinus (Berkeley), switch places for a six-month exchange of offices, courses, and even wives. Both are transformed by the experience. Decades later, Lodge is now writing about an aging academic who must come to terms with deafness. But the interesting question about his best-known novel is whether the places are still the same, and academics would still like to exchange them. In this article, the author discusses the changes in the American and British educational landscape thirty years after Lodge's book was published.

A perennial talking point of politicians and scientists, since the time of the Greeks, is to lament how American youth are sliding into moral decrepitude, lawlessness, and poor mental health. Indeed, to hear some observers talk, particularly in this election year, young people in the United States are being battered by a coarsened culture that celebrates violence and irresponsible sexuality, placing them at greater risk than ever before of a wide variety of social maladies. Though compelling, this narrative of decline is false. In this article, the author contends that according to several significant indicators, today's youth are actually faring much better than did other recent generations: They are less violent, less suicidal, less likely to use drugs and alcohol, and less likely to experience teen pregnancy (despite a small increase in teen pregnancies in 2006, they remain much lower than in 1991).

In this article, the author points out that the cultural bias against serious study of science and technology is rarely recognized as a reason for American students' poor performance. Students respond more profoundly to cultural imperatives than to market forces. In the United States, students are insulated from the commercial market's demand for their knowledge and skills. That market lies a long way off--often too far to see. They are not insulated one bit from the worldview promoted by their teachers, textbooks, and entertainment. From those sources, students pick up attitudes, motivations, and a lively sense of what life is about. School has always been as much about learning the ropes as it is about learning the rotes. However, there are some new ropes, but they aren't very science-friendly. Rather, they lead students who look upon the difficulties of pursuing science to ask, "Why bother?"

In the years since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the federal government's policies that deal with national security have changed significantly. In an effort to prevent the results of science and engineering research from being misused or falling into the wrong hands, government agencies that support studies are placing restrictions on how unclassified research is conducted, how information is exchanged, and who is allowed to participate in the process. Rather than strengthening national security, the restrictions are instead impeding the nation's ability to be economically competitive and defend itself against potential threats. The authors recently chaired a nonpartisan committee of the National Research Council and they traveled around the country to gain insights from intelligence experts and academic researchers on government's restrictions on research. Based from their findings, the authors conclude that the best way to protect the United States is to ensure the open exchange of unclassified research between academics and national security experts.

The publication of Francois Cusset's "French Theory" raises a series of fascinating questions concerning the trans-Atlantic transmission and circulation of ideas. Most important, it impels everyone to inquire why for a time French thought managed to flourish in American universities while French intellectuals rapidly abandoned the entire paradigm. During the 1980s, students and professors of literary theory fervently imbibed the classic texts of "French theory"--what came to be known on America as "poststructuralism." In this article, the author discusses the factors that accounts for French theory's warmer reception in America.

In this article, the author discusses how it is simply too late to be still speaking about French theory and its role in the intellectual life of the United States today. It seems to many observers that the gap between real-life politics and theory's guerrillas is much too wide already, after 30 years of academic fever, for the two worlds to even speak a common language. If theory is to be of any use nowadays, the many tricks and games implied by its cultural metamorphoses should be taken seriously: by addressing the American identity of French theory, and even by pondering the strange feedback effect of a recent return of French theory to France, where it is now coming back under cover, under the disguise of an American type of threat against France's age-old abstract universalism.

In the ongoing national conversation about science education in America, there is a new consensus that people have entered a time of crisis in their relationship to the international scientific and engineering community. When the science committee of the House of Representatives asked the National Academies, the nation's leading scientific advisory group, for 10 recommendations to strengthen America's scientific competitiveness, the academies offered twice that number. There were recommendations to support early-career scientists and those who plan to become science teachers. There were recommendations to create a new government agency to sponsor energy research and to use tax policy to encourage research and development in corporate settings. As sensible as these recommendations may be, they deal largely with financial incentives and big institutions. In this article, the author suggests that students' passion for objects can be a prime motivator in science education. Science is fueled by passion, a passion that often attach's to the world of objects much as the artist attach's to his paints, the poet to his or her words. Putting children in a rich object world is essential to giving science a chance. Children will make intimate connections, connections they need to construct on their own. At a time when science education is in crisis, giving science its best chance means guiding children to objects they can love.

There is a sense of urgency in America today, reminiscent of the "space race" rhetoric of the cold-war era, that Americans must get their act together in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education because the Asians are coming. Many people believe that higher-education institutions in countries like China and India produce professionals in those so-called STEM fields far more effectively than U.S. institutions do, thus posing a major threat to the nation's global competitiveness. Amid the Spellings Commission's concern about America's global competitiveness, the author argues that it would be a mistake to infer that Asian institutions do a better job teaching in STEM fields. The extraordinary talent pool of Asian scientists is not the result of a superior educational system, but rather of the fact that a larger proportion of top students in Asia choose to enter STEM fields in college or graduate school and have the requisite preparation. Several cultural factors account for that phenomenon, none of which have to do with the way the United States or other countries run their institutions or teach their students. What is known about how the brain learns suggests that Asian colleges should become more like their American counterparts, not the other way around. This author contends that the American system of higher education, perhaps unwittingly, promotes more endured learning. It mixes things up, offers students more choices in any given semester, and allows more student engagement with a variety of course materials. An understanding of how the brain learns suggests that the more varied and innovative approaches of American higher education manifests itself in one's thinking in the future--which is the object of education.

Earlier 20th-century thinkers like Lewis Mumford and Edmund Wilson kept the university and its apparatus at arm's length. Indeed, they often disdained it. They oriented themselves toward an educated public, and, as a result, they developed a straightforward prose and gained a nonprofessional audience. As his reputation grew, Wilson printed up a postcard that he sent to those who requested his services. On it he checked the appropriate box: Edmund Wilson does not write articles or books on order; he does not write forewords or introductions, does not give interviews or appear on television, and does not participate in symposia. Later intellectual generations, including, paradoxically, the rebellious 60s cohort, do give interviews; do write articles on demand; and most evidently do participate in symposia. They grew up in a much-expanded campus universe and never left its safety. Younger intellectuals became professors who geared their work toward their colleagues and specialized journals. Twenty years ago, the author published "The Last Intellectuals: American Culture in the Age of Academe," which put into circulation the term "public intellectual." He offered a generational explanation for what he saw as the eclipse of younger intellectuals. Why in 1987 had the same intellectuals dominated for more than 20 years, with few new faces among them? Why was it that the Daniel Bells or Gore Vidals or Kenneth Galbraiths seemed to lack successors? Professionalization and academization appeared to be the reason. Younger intellectuals were retreating into specialized and cloistered environments. In this article, the author argues the differences of later intellectual generations from earlier 20th-century thinkers.

While both the author and Norman Finkelstein were reviled by American Zionists for their opinions regarding Israel's policies in the occupied Palestinian territories when they came up for tenure, the author ultimately gained tenure at an Israeli university, while Finkelstein was denied tenure at an American one. Drawing on this experience, the author argues that American universities are being reconstructed as corporations whose major objective is to sell products. Here, faculty have become products, whereas in Israel, faculty govern their own universities and enjoy correspondingly greater academic freedom.

Public health, once the gem of American social programs, has turned to dross. During the 20th century, the public-health sector wiped smallpox and polio off the U.S. map; virtually eliminated rickets, rubella, and goiter; stopped epidemic typhoid and yellow fever; and brought tuberculosis--once the leading cause of death in U.S. cities--under control. It sought, with considerable success, to reform social and economic structures so the poor would have the same chance at decent health as the wealthy. But public health seems to be a phenomenon of the past, like the Great Society or the New Deal. One testament to the failure is the activity of American health officials, the products of public-health training programs. In the past six years, Americans have seen officials redirect tax-levy funds to pay for ludicrous "biopreparedness" exercises in anticipation of wholly fabricated epidemic dangers, concocted by an administration unable to admit its mistakes after September 11. They have heard officials endorse useless "virginity pledges" for teenagers. They have seen them invoke federal quarantine law--claiming there was a hazard to the public--to arrest one man who had flown on an airplane while carrying noninfectious tuberculosis. But in the past six years, no health official has argued forcefully for social changes that would genuinely improve the public's health on a significant scale. They don't demand reforms of the sort that would make Americans more like those developed countries (Denmark, France, etc.) where infant-mortality rates are more than 20 percent lower than theirs and where life expectancy is longer--changes like more affordable housing, a guaranteed minimum income, a higher minimum wage, restoration of workplace-safety oversights emasculated by big-business-friendly government, or better and cheaper public transportation systems. The author states that health educators must revise their teaching radically and develop curricula that face the vexatious positioning of health as a moral issue.

The United States has begun a $75-million program to promote democracy by supporting Iranian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). That program, coupled with loose talk about regime change from members of Congress, commentators close to the administration, and individuals within the administration, has fed a sense of vulnerability and paranoia among elements of Iran's ruling regime. Those elements believe that the United States, entangled in Iraq and Afghanistan, is no longer capable of a military intervention in Iran. Rather, they believe, it is seeking to overthrow the regime through a "velvet revolution," similar to the peaceful revolutions that brought about regime change in Ukraine, Georgia, and other former republics of the Soviet Union. The Iranian Intelligence Ministry is dedicated to uncovering a comparable "plot" for "soft" revolution in Iran and producing evidence of it for both senior government officials and the larger public. In the ministry's version of reality, American and European think tanks, foundations, and universities, and their proxies in the region, play the principal role in promoting what is, at bottom, a policy of the U.S. government. Iranian scholars and NGO activists are lured abroad with fellowships, research grants, and university appointments, and then put in touch with American and European policy makers, members of intelligence agencies, and democracy activists. That line of thinking explains official Iranian suspicion of the grant-giving programs of American foundations, universities, and think tanks. From the perspective of Tehran, the transparency of those foreign organizations, along with the presence on their staffs of members of former--and future--U.S. administrations, merely reinforces the conviction that there is a hidden agenda: The institutions are closely linked to the U.S. government and carry out its policies. In this article, the authors discuss the limited ability of the United States to spur liberalization within Iran and argue that its efforts to do so only aid the calculating and paranoid forces of repression.

People, especially people in Washington, are worried about the state of American higher education. Last September a report by the Spellings Commission on the Future of Higher Education expressed grave concern about the quality and purpose of colleges and universities. The report cited statistics that implied that higher-education institutions are slipping behind their counterparts in many other industrialized nations, particularly in the rate at which students complete their degrees. It also noted that the cost of educating students in the United States exceeds, by a substantial amount, that in almost every other country. Although some of the data were used in questionable ways--the United States, for example, continues to have among the highest rates of bachelor's-degree attainment--those are nonetheless serious concerns that should not go unanswered. One remedy that the Education Department has proposed would give accrediting agencies responsibility not only to evaluate institutions for access to federal student-aid money but also to set and enforce minimum standards for "student achievement." Accrediting agencies, many of which predate federal student-aid programs by many years, have been the primary gateway between colleges and the federal government and, of course, federal funds. Here, the author argues that involving accrediting agencies or the federal government in evaluating and regulating teaching and learning is an unhealthy departure from traditional arrangements. Outside involvement in those activities runs the risk of curbing the innovation and high levels of creativity that have been the hallmarks of American higher education for decades.

For-profit higher education is a large, complex system of institutions, and its explosive growth over the last decade has made it a prominent force in shaping higher-education policy and practice. The for-profit educational sector is composed of a diverse set of colleges, but most of the literature neatly ignores this. The author argues that for-profit higher education is in need of a good classification system, one more suited to it than those that currently exist. Here, he builds on the elements of existing models to outline a new classification system with three dimensions: (1) geographic scope; (2) ownership; and (3) highest degree offered. Examples of its application are discussed.

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was the principal campus radical organization of the 1960s. When SDS first took form in 1960-62 under the leadership of Al Haber and Tom Hayden, it was a small organization of a few hundred members. By the time the author joined the Reed College chapter as a freshman in 1968, SDS had grown into a very large organization--at least by the standards of the American left--with perhaps as many as 100,000 members. But by that time, leaders of SDS, if not all of its rank and file, had largely forgotten the organization's original goals and values. Leaders of a faction known as Weatherman shut down the organization. So when the author heard that a new SDS was in the offing, he felt that even if the organizers were determined to avoid a repetition of past disasters, it would still prove a mistake to revive an organization whose very name imposed on its members the necessity of constantly explaining to skeptical outsiders that, no, it wasn't the SDS of 1969 they sought to emulate, but that of earlier, saner years. This article explains the distinctions between SDS in 1960s and SDS in 2006.

In this article, the author talks about the situation of Muslims in Western countries such as the United States. Here, the author talks about his experience wherein his visa was being revoked in late July 2004. The reason is that he made donations totaling approximately $900 to a Swiss Palestinian-support group that is now on the American blacklist and that the group had ties with Hamas. He points out that American society, like all Western societies has changed. The diversity of its population has produced a diversity of political views with which we must come to terms, particularly with regard to the Middle East and to relations with the countries that have an Islamic majority. Millions of Western citizens of the Muslim faith have brought a new outlook toward the world and toward Western policy. He revisits Islamic scriptural sources in order to share his views on how Muslims can live their lives in the West.

In this article, the author discusses Europe's anti-Americanism stance. He observes that Europe's aversion to America has become greater, louder, and more determined, and that it has unified Western Europeans more than any other political emotion (with the exception of a common hostility toward Israel). The author contends that the many disastrous and irresponsible policies by members of the Bush administration has contributed greatly to Europe's animosity towards America. Negative sentiments and views have been driven not only by what the United States does, but rather by an animus against what Europeans have believed that America is. While the politics, style, and discourse of the Bush presidential terms--and of President Bush as a person--have undoubtedly exacerbated anti-American sentiment among Europeans and fostered a heretofore unmatched degree of unity between elite and mass opinion in Europe, they are not anti-Americanism's cause. Indeed, according to this author, a change to a center-left administration in Washington, led by a Democratic president, would not bring about its abatement, let alone its disappearance. The author examines the reasons behind this animosity, and explains how anti-Americanism has helped Europe gain respect and political clout in the rest of the world.

The world is moving toward a uniform material culture, dominated by mostly material American influences: technological innovations, fashion, Hollywood and the celebrity culture it promotes, hip-hop, and rock and roll. But the pervasiveness of the trappings of American culture obscures the central cultural paradox that lies within the globalization process: Although people around the world may wear, eat, and listen to American products, they continue to maintain their deeply ingrained values, beliefs, and underlying assumptions. They may embrace the material products of modernity, but they cling tenaciously to their underlying cultural cores--which remain vibrant and resiliently distinct. As such, it is important for the Americans to acquire, develop, and master international cultural fluency if they want to sell their products to the world. This article discusses how the U.S. and its citizens can master international cultural fluency in order to prepare them for the challenges of globalization.

America's reputation abroad has never been so abysmal. That is the inescapable conclusion of countless books, newspaper and magazine articles, and public-opinion polls that have documented the growth of anti-Americanism during the Bush administration. Yet outside Europe and the Middle East, the loathing for Bush and the bitterness toward America do not appear nearly so intense. That is especially true in India. India is not only more sympathetic to American foreign policy, but it also lacks fixation on the injurious effects of America's economic and cultural influence. The tormented bond between America and Europe has been addressed recently in an article in the September issue of The Journal of American History by the Dutch historian Rob Kroes, titled "European Anti-Americanism: What's New?" On the surface, Kroes's essay is a litany of contemporary, but also ancient, European complaints about American behavior. No doubt the arguments between Americans and Europeans will endure, as Kroes's essay demonstrates. One hopes, though, that America's dreadful image in the world will be altered in the future not just by a change in presidents and policies, but also by the example of how a country like India can maintain a less neurotic relationship with the United States. Perhaps, then, India may provide a more desirable model than the European Union of how other nations can define their identities not in opposition to, but independent of, America.

In this article, the author discusses the released report entitled, "Doctorate Recipients From United States Universities: Summary Report 2005," which is based on the annual Survey of Earned Doctorates. According to the report, the number of earned doctorates awarded by American universities rose 2.9 percent in 2005. Doctorates in science and engineering rose even more, climbing 6.5 percent in a single year and passing the previous high mark set in 1998. The author argues that these increases do not tell the entire story. Instead, the number of U.S. citizens getting doctorates has decreased, and the substantial increases in degrees awarded to international students account for the growth. Here, he presents some highlights which the survey found. (Contains related materials table.)

This article reports on the imprisonment of a Muslim former student on charges related to terrorism that has struck a chord among academics and public intellectuals. Syed Fahad Hashmi, a 28-year-old naturalized U.S. citizen born in Pakistan, is being held in solitary confinement at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, on multiple charges related to terrorism. Jeanne Theoharis, an associate professor of political science at the City University of New York's Brooklyn College, remembers Syed Fahad Hashmi as an energetic student who took frequent advantage of his professors' office hours. Ms. Theoharis also recalls that her student took a keen interest in civil liberties. Mr. Hashmi wrote his final paper for her class on the contradictions between basic American freedoms and ideals and the U.S. government's treatment of citizens since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Mr. Hashmi's involvement in Al Muhajiroun, a controversial and now officially defunct extremist Islamic group based in Britain, is one reason for his arrest. Testimony against Mr. Hashmi by a government informant may also play a role in his continued detention. Mr. Hashmi's ordeal has had a profound effect on Ms. Theoharis and another of his instructors, who have organized a "Free Fahad" campaign to gain his release. She and her colleague Corey Robin, an associate professor of political science at Brooklyn College who began the campaign, have gained the support of hundreds of academics, writers, and social-justice activists. Apart from Mr. Hashmi's personal predicament, the case's potential to create a chilling effect on college campuses is troublesome to those in academe who want him freed.

A statistical table reports the changes in the number of college applicants from March 1, 1984, to March 1, 1985, showing data separately for public and private institutions, by institutional type, region of the country, and institutional size. (LB)